Hi, my name is Shirley.

I’m an award-winning creative
focused on data-driven
art and visualizations.
instagram | twitter | newsletter
✨
for story.

People of the Pandemic

A game that shows how an infectious disease might spread through a community, using real data and real people's decisions whether to stay home each week.

πŸ›  built with D3.js, Vue.js, and Greensock.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for story, data visualization design & development, software architecture.
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An Interactive Visualization of Every Line in Hamilton

Analyzing 21,000 words for relational and thematic insights.

πŸ₯‡ Broze in Arts, Entertainment & Pop Culture, Information is Beautiful Awards
πŸ›  built with D3.js, React.js, and HTML5 Canvas for The Pudding.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for everything.
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Bussed Out

How America moves its homeless.

πŸ₯‡ Gold in Politics & Global, Information is Beautiful Awards // Silver in "Features", Malofiej // Winner of Best Data Visualization, World Digital Media Awards // Winner of Investigative Data Journalism, Online Journalism Awards
πŸ›  built with D3.js and Greensock for The Guardian.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for data visualization design & development, web development.
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EXPLORE ADVENTURE

Digging through a decade of Google travel searches.

πŸ›  built with D3.js, React.js, and Greensock for Google News Lab.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for everything.
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✨
for
exploration.

Data Sketch|es

A twelve-month collaboration with the brilliant Nadieh Bremer of Visual Cinnamon.

Each month, we choose a topic and build a visualization by the end of the month; an opportunity to experiment and create. In the process, we document the trials and successes we faced wrangling the data, sketching, and coding the visualization.

πŸ₯‡ Gold in Unusual, Information is Beautiful Awards
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One Amongst Many

A physical, interactive data installation of women in computing.

πŸ›  built with Arduino, Neopixels, and tilt sensors for NYU ITP Artist Residency.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for data analysis, Arduino prototype & code, digital analog.
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Send Me Love - SFMOMA

An exploration of five individuals and their interactions with Send Me SFMOMA for a week.

πŸ›  built with D3.js, Greensock, and Vue.js for SFMOMA.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for everything.
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Four Years of Vacations in 20,000 Colors

4,000 photos over 13 trips, their colors visualized. Further experimentation in color.

πŸ›  built with D3.js, React.js, and HTML5 Canvas for September Datasketch|es.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for everything.
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hong kong artists, women

Highlighting the work of HK women artists and their under-representation online.

πŸ›  built with Three.js, WebGL, D3.js, Vue.js, and Greensock for M+.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for everything.
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Legends

A 3D visualization of the 51 female Noble Laureates and their accomplishments.

πŸ›  built with Three.js, WebGL, and Vue.js for Christmas XP.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for everything.
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Film Flowers

Summer blockbusters reimagined as flowers. An experimentation with color.

πŸ›  built with D3.js for July Datasketch|es.
πŸ’ͺ responsible for everything.
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🎊
I also write, teach, and
give talks once in a while.

Frontend Masters

A series of workshops geared towards frontend developers, taking them from the very basics of D3.js to analyzing and designing their own custom data visualizations.

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655 Frustrations Doing Data Visualization

An analysis of the 2017 Data Visualization Community Survey, and a writeup of the areas we as a community can work to better.

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ShirleyChats: a series of live chats with friends in the data visualization and tech industries.

Upcoming Conferences

N/A

Past Conferences

JSConf JP 2019 // Tokyo, Japan // November 30, December 1, 2019

Web Unleashed 2019 // Toronto, Canada // September 13-14, 2019

WeAreDevelopers WorldCongress β€˜19 // Berlin, Germany // June 6-7, 2019

J on the Beach 2019 // Marbella, Spain // May 16-17, 2019

beyond tellerrand 2019 // DΓΌsseldorf, Germany // May 13-14, 2019

ImageCon 2019 // San Francisco, CA // May 1-2, 2019

Malofiej27 // Pamplona, Spain // March 25-29, 2019

Coldfront Conf 2018 // Copenhagen, Denmark // November 13-14, 2018

ChicagoJS 2018 // Chicago, IL // September 22, 2018

React Rally 2018 // Salt Lake City, UT // August 16-17, 2018

Concatenate 2018 // Remote // August 10-11, 2018

enterJS 2018 // Darmstadt, Germany // June 19-22, 2018

React Amsterdam 2018 // Amsterdam, Netherlands // April 13, 2018

JSConf Asia 2018 // Singapore // January 25-27, 2018

GDG DevFest 2017 // Mountain View, USA // December 16, 2017

Tokyo Node Festival 2017 // Tokyo, Japan // November 25-26, 2017

Reactive Conf 2017 // Bratislava, Slovakia // October 25-27, 2017

ReactNext 2017 // Tel Aviv, Israel // September 10, 2017

Reasons To 2017 (elevator pitch) // Brighton, UK // September 4-6, 2017

React Rally 2017 // Salt Lake City, UT // August 24-25, 2017

CSSConf EU 2017 // Berlin, Germany // May 5, 2017

Openvis Conf 2017 // Boston, MA // April 24, 2017

Openvis Conf 2016 // Boston, MA // April 25, 2016

BackboneConf 2014 // Boston, MA // December 15, 2014

Podcasts & Interviews

Nightingale: How Do You Simulate a Pandemic? // May 15, 2020

Dataviz Today: How to Find New Collaborators and Execute a Complex Project // May 5, 2020

Tableau: Social distancing, three data-driven simulations will show you just how important it is // May 5, 2020

Learn with Jason: Generative Data Visualization, part 3 // April 14, 2020

Tech+Art Podcast: Shirley Wu, Software Engineer & Data Visualization Freelancer // March 26, 2020

egghead.io: How Shirley Wu Built A Career As A Freelance Data Visualizer // March 17, 2020

Nextstrain Onboarding with Colin Megill // March 13, 2020

The Entrepreneurial Coder Podcast: How To Be A Successful Niche Freelancer // January 21, 2020

The Coding Train: Introduction to D3.js with Shirley Wu // November 15, 2019

Learn with Jason: Generative Data Visualization Design and Planning, part 2 // November 8, 2019

Learn with Jason: Generative Data Visualization Design and Planning // October 15, 2019

Chats with Kent: Lessons Learned From Four Major Projects with Shirley Wu // August 8, 2019

Frontend Happy Hour: The art of mixology - creative coding // August 4, 2019

net August 2019: Voices Interview // August 2019

Data Visualization: A Lesson and Listen Series // April 5, 2019

Fun Fun Function: Data visualization chat // December 10, 2018

React Podcast: Data Visualization with Shirley Wu // August 7, 2018

Frontend Happy Hour: Shots to growlers // June 24, 2018

Dataviz Today: How to Find Answers in Survey Results // March 13, 2018

Frontend Happy Hour: Independent Taste Testing // January 21, 2018

Frontend Happy Hour: Champagne ideas and caviar dreams // October 15, 2017

Data is Beautiful Subreddit: Ask Me Anything! // October 12, 2017

Frontend Masters Path to Mastery: Saying Yes to Challenges // September 14, 2017

Quick Questions with Shirley Wu // August 12, 2017

Frontend Happy Hour: Plotting our drinks // July 17, 2017

Data Stories: Data Sketches with Nadieh Bremer and Shirley Wu // May 17, 2017

Toolsday: Data Sketches // May 16, 2017

Animation in Dataviz – An Interview with Nadieh Bremer and Shirley Wu // April 27th, 2017

Elsie Cast: Data Visualization // February 13, 2017

Modern Web: Data Visualization on the Web with DataSketches // December 1, 2016

Blog Posts

2018, A Year in Review // January 7, 2019

655 Frustrations Doing Data Visualization // September 21, 2017

2015, A Year in Review // January 15, 2016

On D3, React, and a little bit of Flux // July 13, 2015

Understanding the Force // July 22, 2014

An Interactive Introduction to D3.js // July 18, 2014

Marrying Backbone.js and D3.js, a Follow-up // July 5, 2014

Marrying Backbone.js and D3.js // May 9, 2013

πŸ’–
origin story.

When I was a kid, I loved two things: math and art. I wanted to be a painter or Pixar animator when I grew up. When I entered high school, I took an exhaustive number of math and science classes. By the end of the four years, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with them.

So naturally, my eighteen-year-old self decided that business would be the exact opposite and be my raison d'Γͺtre. Fast-forward three years to my junior year, and I realized I abhored my business classes and adored the few Computer Science classes I took. When I completed my summer internship at an investment bank, I knew that I couldn't go back. I decided that I would focus my senior year on completing a CS minor and looking for a full-time job in software engineering.

(My friends told me they had expected this of me all along: "why did you even go into business, anyway?")

And somehow, miraculously, I landed a full-time position at Splunk post-graduation. (I was beside myself with relief and joy.) I was introduced to D3 as part of my job, and slowly fell in love with its genius. I adored D3 and the broader field of data visualization; they felt like a beautiful combination of art and code.

When I started at Illumio, I was happy with my technical knowledge, but wanted to apply it and build a long-term project from the ground up. Illumination allowed me to do that; I learned so much about teamwork, and the joys and pitfalls of building out a piece of the product from its inception.

I left Illumio in the summer of 2016, and have been trying my hand at freelancing since. It's been an amazing (though stressful) ride, and I've had the opportunity to work with companies in a wide variety of industries. It's been eye-opening to learn about their products, their problem statements, and their philosophies. I've also had the opportunity to step away from product, and try my hand at narrative and storytelling.

I'm hoping to keep freelancing for as long as I can. I'm still excited to see where I go from here.